


Unworthy

by isa_belle



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Far From Home spoilers, Happy Hogan is trying his best, Peter Parker Deserves Better, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker is a Mess, Sort Of, Spider-Man: Far From Home (Movie), but like my own version of canon, its sad, sort of canon compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 20:36:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20014438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isa_belle/pseuds/isa_belle
Summary: "Are you real?"His voice is hoarse and soft. It cracks and wavers with every word. He sounds like a kid. He is a kid. And he’s a mess, limping past tulips with bloodied clothes and swollen wounds."yeah, kid, I'm real."





	Unworthy

**Author's Note:**

> I sorta took this scene out of context and stuck it in a universe where what I want to be canon is canon, so peter knows the Avengers well, but Tony and Nat are still dead. Also I don’t know the exact quotes so I chose different dialogue and sort of dug deeper into the discussion about Tony and how that loss is affecting peter as a person and as Spider-man.

His eyes are full of hope. They’re puffy and red from crying, and wide and a little scared, but there’s a sort of dulled out light that shows through the hurt as he looks at me. But the fear is still there, it creeps in behind the irises, clouding the bright and wonder-filled brown that usually resides there. His eyes carry a certain doubt. Like he doesn’t trust his own hope.  
“Are you real?”  
His voice is hoarse and soft. It cracks and wavers with every word. He sounds like a kid. He is a kid. And he’s a mess, limping past tulips with bloodied clothes and swollen wounds. He’s covered in scratches and cuts and scrapes. They litter his limbs, getting blood all over, and his arm is bending wrong, like the bone twisted out and tried to poke through the skin. He holds it close to his chest as he stumbles along. He stops a few feet away from me and catches his breath, squeezing his eyes shut in what I can only assume is pain. I scrunch up my face in confusion at the question.  
“Yeah, kid, I’m real.”  
I take a step towards him, to help him onto the jet, the words ‘what the hell happened?’ Already forming on my tongue. But he flinches back as soon as I move, blocking his face with his arms, elbows up in defense.  
He hides his face like he feels exposed. Like someone tore him to shreds and tried to sew him back together but didn’t know how to sew. I stick my hands up in surrender.  
“Tell me,” his voice cracks, and his face contorts again in pain. I go to reach out but I stop myself, remembering the full body flinch, as if someone had just brought him back to reality. He sounds pathetic, like a wounded baby deer, I want to pull him inside and wrap him in a blanket, give him some pain killers and lock him away from the rest of the world. But I’ve seen the look he has before. The too jumpy, easily startled and panic stricken look, the lack of trust but desperate _want_ to trust that hides in the eyes. I’ve seen it on Tony. So I go slow.  
“Tell me-” he repeats, trying to anchor himself where he stands, likely willing himself not to run away. “-something only you would know.”  
“Okay,” I scroll through my mental file for something that will prove to him that I am, in fact, real and here to help him. “okay so, remember when we went to Germany? You paid per view on a video in your room. And they didn’t list the titles but I could tell by the price that it was an adult film st the front desk. And you know how I knew?”  
Peter watches me as I talk, face falling into some form of relief. He cuts me off with a fragile, “ _OKAY_ , okay fine it’s you, it’s you, stop!” And he laughs a broken sort of laugh and starts crying, heavy sobs that rattle his whole chest. “Happy,” He says, exhaling in relief, smiling and practically dragging himself over to me and throwing himself into my arms, blissful sobs turning into pain ridden bawling as his face presses into my chest. I simply put a gentle arm on his back, careful not to press too hard and hurt him, and let him cry. And it hurts. Because I don’t know what to do. And Tony would. That’s the one the Tony always knew how to do, no matter what he could help his kid. And who am I to screw up all his hard work now that he’s gone?  
“It’s so good to see you.“ he gasps, “Happy I-“ he continues, probably trying to spit out some sort of explanation for the broken bones and broken sobs. I shush him.  
“Tell me later, kid, let’s go inside.”  
He pulls away but still clings to my arm, as if he’s afraid that if he lets go I’ll disappear. And again I’m reminded painfully of Tony. When he got back after Titan he stuck to Pepper, Rhodey, and me like we’d turn to ash the second he let go, constantly touching and holding and staring.  
I practically carry him up the stairs and into the jet, sitting him down on a seat as gently as possible. Then I get up and grab a bottle of aspirin from a cup holder, knowing it won’t do him much good but handing the bottle to him anyway. He just holds it in his fist so tightly his knuckles go white and sort of stares at it with a far off look. He’s thinking about something else. About whatever went down today. I don’t pry. He can tell me when he wants. I tell him we should see a doctor for his arm but he just pops it back into place looking distracted, muttering something about how it’ll heal in a few days. I hand him some tissues and he puts down the pill bottle, opting instead to rip a tissue to shreds.  
“It was Mysterio.” He says after a few minutes of silence and tissue tearing. “The guy from the news, with the fishbowl thing on his head.” He clarifies.  
“Isn’t he a good guy?” I ask, thinking back to the videos of him fighting the giant monsters made of ocean and fire and earth that May showed me, shouting about avenging his family and nearly dying to save Peter and his nerd-friends.  
“No.”  
I hesitate, then “what did he do to you, kid?”  
Peter’s eye twitches a little and he rips up another tissue. “He hit me with a train.” He says, trying to remain neutral, and succeeding everywhere but his eyes, that truly are windows to his soul. My eyes widen and I feel anger bubbling in my chest, hot and red. “And all the elementals and stuff? It’s all a big lie. They’re projections, they’re just giant holograms from his drones. And I screwed up. I gave him EDITH.”  
“EDITH?”  
Peter drops the tissue and glances at me. “EDITH. ‘S and acronym. ‘Even Dead I’m the Hero.’” He laughs a little, “It’s an AI in Tony’s old glasses. He gave them to me. Or-he gave them to Nick Fury who knocked out my friend, hijacked my whole class’ field trip, kidnapped me, and then gave them to me.”  
“Why’d you give them away?” I can’t help but ask. I shouldn’t. He clearly hates himself for it. But I have to know.  
“Quentin Beck, _Mysterio_ , tricked me. Tricked all of us. Made me think he was a good guy so I gave him the glasses. The case had a note that said ‘for the next Tony Stark,’” he runs a hand over his face, probably starting to hide more tears, as if I haven’t already seen him sob a million times before. “And I gave it _away_. Because I thought that it couldn’t be me. No matter what anyone wanted. I thought that Beck could do it. Because acted so much like Tony, he was smart and brave and-“ he swallows, “-nice to me. But I was so wrong and I messed up so bad, Happy,” his voice breaks, “and I don’t know what to do.”  
“It’s okay, Peter.” And it’s not really, but it’s also not his fault that Mysterio manipulated him. Peter was shattered by Tony’s death. He didn’t leave his apartment for weeks, staying in bed all day until he finally got up and threw himself into being Spider-man so hard we were all sure it stung like hell when he hit the ground. He was desperate. For someone to fill that gap, to be a sort of mentor/father figure. He was willing to believe anyone who gave him the time of day _could_ fill that gap. And Beck took advantage of that. Preaching new worlds and fighting huge beasts and giving soft touches and gentle conversations to perfectly weasel himself into Peter’s and everyone’s life. And then using that to hurt him, to throw him in front of a train and whatever other illusions are clearly setting fire to the kid’s brain now that he’s out of there and safe. And it makes me mad. It makes my fists shake with fiery rage that I definitely shouldn’t act on. That some asshole would take advantage of a kid, Tony’s kid and May’s kid and Pepper’s kid the team’s kid, _our_ kid.  
Peter exhales, struggling with something, turning it over in his mind. I can see his eyes clouding as he sinks too deep into the thought.  
“Everywhere I go,” He starts, pulling me out of my anger, a tired look in his eyes, “I see his face.” He swallows and I feel my heart shatter a little bit more as tears form in his eyes and his mouth bends with an overwhelming sorrow. “I just miss him.”  
I just sigh, feeling so out of my depth, trying to think of something to say or do to make this kid feel better and stop blaming himself for this bastard’s deception. Trying to figure out what Tony would do. Because _Tony always knew what to do._  
“I miss him too.”  
“Y’know,” Peter continues, looking past me, focused on something that definitely is not in the room with us. “People keep asking me ‘Are you the next Tony Stark?’ And ‘Are you an Avenger’ and I honestly don’t know what to say. Because Tony always answered those questions for me. So I’d didn’t have to. And I know what I _want_ to say.  
I want to say no, I’m not the next Tony Stark, because there’s never gonna be another. There’s only ever gonna be one. And I don’t want-“ his voice cracks, “-I don’t want to be an Avenger anymore. I used to. When I was fifteen and dumb and naive I wanted to be a hero and fight bad guys and do good. After Germany all I wanted in the world was to get a mission and be an Avenger. But I was so stupid. And I didn’t get that being a hero comes with a price. That you lie awake at night thinking about every person you couldn’t save.”  
I blink and wonder if he means Tony.  
“I don’t want to be a hero. I just want go be a kid. I want to go to parties and ask out the girl I like and try alcohol and wear eyeliner and break the rules, I mean I’m seventeen, for God’s sake.” He laughs roughly and tries to blink away the tears that are already streaming down his cheeks, “ _I don’t want to be a hero anymore._ ” He says it desperately. Like he’s searching for an out but knows he’s never really gonna get one. “And I know that it makes me _selfish_.”  
And that really hits me, knocking the wind out of me so I’m sitting on the floor, trying to breathe. The rest of the words are loud but that has a booming echo. The kid’s allowed to be selfish. He deserves it. More than most. Maybe more than anyone. And I can see the loathing he has for himself for thinking it. He’s disgusted by his own thoughts and it makes me want to cry along with him.  
“You’re not selfish, Peter.”  
He looks at me, clear and bitter disbelief painted all over his features. “No,” he says definitively, like he won’t take criticism, “I can’t even-“ he squeezes his eyes shut in pain, tears running down his face, but this time the pain isn’t physical, it isn’t from the train wreck or the illusion that he won’t talk about. It’s all feeling. It’s self loathing and grief and blame and guilt and loss and sadness and want and mixed together and pouring from his eyes in hot streams of water. “I can’t even put on the suit. Because I feel like it doesn’t fit anymore.” He opens his eyes and he looks right at me like he’s asking a question but I don’t know how to answer so I sit here useless, wishing (not for the first time) that Tony was still here. “Like I’m not worthy now that Tony’s,” he pauses for a little too long between words, trying to cover it by swallowing, “ _gone_. He made the suit for me. He said that if I’m nothing without it I shouldn’t have it and I shouldn’t have it now because I _am_ nothing. I’m nothing without Tony. I mean Mr. Stark-“ I almost flinch at the familiar name, it strikes a nerve I didn’t know I had. “-he made me everything that I am. I owe it all to him so why do have the right to march around in _his_ suit now that he’s not here? I mean I’ve screwed up _so_ many times, I literally handed over a super powerful weapon to a guy who’s trying to kill me and my friends. I can’t be who he wanted me to be, Happy, I don’t know how to be the next Tony Stark, I don’t think I can. An it’s so scary because everyone expects so much from me and I have nothing left to give. And I just wish we had him back, Happy. I miss him so much it feels like someone tore me open and replaced my insides with shards of glass. Because he’d know what to do. _He always knew._ ”  
The kid’s a mess, now, full out sobbing again, frantic and panicked and sad.  
“Maybe if I’d done something different. If I had been a little better. Maybe he’d still be here.”  
“Hey,” I say, putting a hand on his shoulder. “It’s not you’re fault. You can’t blame yourself. It was Tony’s decision. And I don’t think he would’ve done what he did if he didn’t know you’d be around after. He did it for you, Peter.”  
Peter hiccups a little, “I know. And I want to be as good as he wanted me to be but I’m so tired, Happy.” His face is bent with a hopeless sort of pain as he coughs out a few more sobs. “I’m so tired.”  
He puts his face in his hands, trying to wipe away the tears but they replace themselves just as fast as he makes them disappear. He attempts to stop the crying but the frustration just makes him sob harder and after a moments consideration of WWTD (what would Tony do) I reach out and pull the kid to my chest and let him cry again, figuring he deserves to be weak. That he needs comfort and assurance that this is real. I’m not and illusion and I’m not going anywhere.  
The hope in his eyes is gone. But I mentally swear to whatever gods are out there, to whatever entities or universes, to Tony, where ever he is, that I’ll bring it back. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! The next chapter is going to be the same thing from Peter's POV. Comment if you see any reason for me to take it down or if you want to validate me :)


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